


Winter Holidays

by Ladyblanc_RU



Series: Chamomile tea [2]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Attempt at Humor, Established Relationship, Family Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Minor Aiden/Lambert (The Witcher), No Plot/Plotless, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:55:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28673319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladyblanc_RU/pseuds/Ladyblanc_RU
Summary: Jaskier had always been a person who liked a good adventure or two, but even he was slightly surprised with all those shenanigans Morhen family found themselves in throughout the holidays. But, he figured, after all the hard work he had done, he deserved to have two weeks of amazing adventures.
Relationships: Eskel/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Chamomile tea [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2100816
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Winter Holidays

**Author's Note:**

> Quick disclaimer. I used Grammarly to check this chapter, but we don't get along too well, so I apologize in advance for any mistakes.

It took some time for the rest of the family to notice that they had an audience, though Jaskier enjoyed watching the whole chaos and couldn’t even care about anything. Seriously, seeing a grown man being beaten by a broom that his father wielded like it was an extension of his hand was hilarious. What was less funny, though, was that soon a teenage girl, who must’ve been Ciri from Eskel’s brief descriptions, decided to stop filming the whole battle for a moment and looked around the kitchen. When her big green eyes stopped on him, Jaskier knew he was screwed up. There was a moment of confusion before she walked up to him — surprisingly calm, actually — and after a brief introduction started piling a ton of questions on top of him. Eskel near the musician only smirked, patting him on his shoulder before joining Geralt at the table. Jaskier was taken aback by the number of words being tossed at him at first, but he recovered quickly and eagerly worked his way through the girl’s curiosity. Ciri’s voice must’ve broken the chaos, which still had been going on in all its power until that point, and make the head of the family acknowledge the audience. And after some orders and cleaning around, during which Lambert grumbled something about them being free labor, the family was finally seated at the table.

Jaskier was ready for anything to happen. A quiet breakfast, another fight, Lambert joking around, anything. But not an apology from the head of the family. The man, who was separated from the musician by Eskel, stood up. He looked around the room and, when his glance stopped on the musician, said, “I guess it’s time for some proper introductions. I’m Vesemir. Unfortunately, the only one with more than one brain cell here,” Jaskier smiled at Vesemir, who nodded in response, “Sorry for these idiots and everything you had to witness. Some of us here will never learn how to behave.”

Vesemir threw a pointed glare at Lambert, only making him grumbled again under his breath. Everyone else rolled their eyes, perfectly knowing that it was the truth. Before Jaskier came up with a suitable answer, Vesemir walked to the counters, patting the musician’s shoulder in greeting. Then another man who sat just across the musician at Lambert’s side smiled, offering his hand for a shake, “I’m Aiden. Heard ‘bout that band of yours. Not as big of a fan as our cub ‘ere, but you make some good stuff.”

“Why thank you,” Jaskier smiled proudly and shook offered hand back, “and what do you do for a living?”

“I’m a full-time firefighter, and a part-time Lambert’s sidekick.”

“So, you made a pact with the devil, huh?” the musician asked, ignoring the stare he got from Lambert. Aiden laughed genuinely and nodded, “well, hope you’re getting paid enough for that, otherwise it's not worth it.”

“Believe me, he pays me handsomely,” Aiden grinned which earned a groan from everyone else at the table. Vesemir simply barked, placing a bowl full of salad on the table.

“Not at the table.”

“Do we have to eat salads again?” Lambert asked eyeing the bowl suspiciously, “we ate a ton of that shit yesterday, don’t you think it’s time we have a break?”

That only earned a slap at the back of his head from Vesemir, “No one will have anything else until these are finished. You asking about this every year won’t change things one bit.”

“Chill, old man,” Lambert backed off, lifting his hands in surrender, "I just asked.”

Eskel leaned closer to Jaskier and whispered into his ear, “At least this time he didn’t throw a tantrum.”

“Fuck off, Eskel, that happened once,” Lambert growled, while Jaskier chuckled, “should’ve thrown that snow under your blankets as planned.”

Jaskier was sure that was meant to sound like a threat but knowing that now there was a lot of snow just sitting in the man’s room ruined the effect of Lambert’s words. Both he and Eskel laughed openly, not even trying to hide their enjoyment. They got a bunch of confused glances, a curious one from Ciri and another sigh from Vesemir who returned to his seat and started to chew on his salad, not even trying to calm everyone down anymore.

He waved his hand at a suspicious glare thrown at him by Lambert, “Don’t worry, darling, you will get your chance to do that. Anyway, do you only like to throw snow at others or simply the snow itself?”

“What are you up to, singer?” Lambert growled narrowing his eyes, “or have you packed me a bunch of snow for a present?”

“Oh, don’t mind my sparkling interest,” Jaskier smiled sweetly, placing a spoon of another salad on his plate, “I’m just making a small conversation here. You know, that’s what people do when they meet someone. Unlike you, I have some sorts of manners.”

Eskel on his right snorted, “Everyone here has more manners than Lambert. That plank was low ever since he learned to talk.”

“Definitely,” Geralt smirked from his seat, “at least he didn’t ask how you spent your night, yet.”

Ciri lifted her head curiously, “What did you do at night, Uncle Eskel?”

“I said not at the table,” Vesemir growled, shushing the conversation entirely. Jaskier wiggled his brows at Ciri making her roll her eyes and return to her food.

Lambert looked at them intensely during the while breakfast while others made small talks with each other. No sex themes anymore, which for sure made Vesemir relax and even start to participate in conversations. Jaskier eagerly answered any questions which arose and was overall glad that for the most time everyone talked between themselves not focusing too much attention on him. Despite him being a musician and someone who craved people's attention, especially when he was on a stage, this time it felt much better not to be in the center of everyone’s interest. It felt good that no one made a whole-blown sensation that he was someone relatively famous either. There was, of course, Ciri who couldn’t find it in herself to keep all her questions and curiosities at bay, and even Geralt reminding her to be polite a couple of times didn’t work much, though Jaskier was eager to answer on those. They simply consisted of genuine interest, nothing overly annoying or uncomfortable some other fans tended to ask on various platforms. Being around people who didn’t care about how much he made neither if he knew other performers were good. If they were going to be the way they had acted so far, he would become one of them in no time.

When the breakfast was close to its logical conclusion, Vesemir suddenly frowned and got up to walk to the staircase. All conversations died in an instant, and everyone looked closely as the man stared into nothingness for a moment and then asked, “Who forgot to close their window?”

Everyone looked around, while Jaskier did his best not to grin and give himself away. Lambert continued to stare at him until a realization fell on him like snow on his head. He growled deeply, “What the fuck you two did?”

“I can assure you that nothing, darling,” Jaskier answered, getting up to help Ciri with all the plates she was now collecting. The girl nodded at him, and they both got to work together.

“You ain't fooling me with your smiles,” Lambert slammed his hands against the table surface, his glare still burning hotly at the back of Jaskier’s skull like the man tried to stare a hole in his skull, “answer my question, now.”

The musician could hear how Eskel got up as well. The chair he sat on creaked in protest from being pushed aside, “Back off, Lambert,” Eskel said coldly, “you should’ve known better than trying to wake us with a fucking snow shower.”

“Enough,” Vesemir finally barked at all of them, “I don’t care which one of you did that, now get that fucking window closed before I made everyone to gather firewood for our heating system.”

And just with that both Lambert and Aiden jumped from their places and ran to the stairs and all the way up. Vesemir only sighed again, mumbling something about a punishment he didn’t deserve, and disappeared into a living room. Jaskier made sure Ciri was good with the rest of the plates which still needed cleaning, before grinning widely. He slipped to Eskel’s side and carefully took his elbow, to make a fast escape to the outside of the house, but they were stopped by two loud shouts coming from upstairs. Ciri jumped on her place almost losing a plate she was holding. She quickly shook the initial surprise and run away to have a look at what had happened as fast as she could. There was also a loud groan coming from Vesemir in the living room, but everyone was so caught in the whole mess, they didn’t pay attention to that.

Geralt looked after his daughter for a second and then turned to face Eskel and Jaskier who was now practically glowing with their victory. He lifted his brow questioningly, “What did you both do there?”

Jaskier beamed at him, dragging Eskel to the entrance before Aiden and Lambert go the chance to have their revenge, “Just what served them right. A snowman dressed in Lambert’s clothes, maybe a pile of snow on their bed. The usual.”

“These holidays would be something,” Geralt rolled his eyes following two men to the hallway, watching how they got dressed in a hurry, “did you really have to pay them back? You won’t hear the end of it after doing this.”

Eskel was the one who answered him, “Come on, Lambert needed to learn his lesson. His pranks were getting out of hand. You surely know that. You were the one whose money was burnt in a recent experiment of his.”

“Don’t remind me about that. Everything smelt of alcohol for days after that. Every cop was sure I was the source of it.”

Jaskier laughed loudly, stopping his hurry to get outside for a second. Suddenly, there was a loud sound of someone stomping above their heads, and then a snowball flew right into the musician’s shoulder. He looked past Geralt, who was unhelpfully blocking most of the view on the staircase, though he could still see Lambert’s angry figure. Another snowball flew past him, this time into Geralt. The man growled and turned to face his brother, which gave Jaskier enough time to hastily open the door and break outside. There, the musician quickly looked around for something remotely like shelter. His gaze fell on a bunch of thujas which were lined in front of the fence in a way that there was still some space to hide in. Glad that he found something he could use as an escape route, Jaskier rand there, barely avoiding a wall of snowballs coming from house windows. The musician could hear Eskel swear somewhere on his right, though judging by a wild cursing which came a moment later from Aiden, he had the situation under control.

He might’ve underestimated the amount of space he now really had, though it was still better than to be left on open space without anything to defend himself with. Jaskier carefully poked around one of the trees only to catch a snowball right into his face. The musician hissed, feeling how ice shards pierced into his opened eyes. He managed to find one glove in his pocket, not knowing or caring where another one was and wiped his face enough to see what he was doing. With his vision fixed, he grabbed a handful of snow in his hands. The cold bit his left hand, which was left without any means of protection, but Jaskier barely noticed that, too busy aiming at Lambert, who was carefully looking around to spot him. A grin crossed his face as he fired, hoping to hit the target, He hit in the end, though not the person he intended to. In the last second, Lambert bent down, leaving Ciri on the way of a snowball.

The musician looked guiltily at the girl shook off the snow from her chest and shouted apologetically, jumping to another tree, “Sorry!”

“You’re lucky that Lambert is gonna kick your ass anyway, otherwise I would’ve joined him!” Ciri shouted back and disappeared into the house.

“You heard that, flower?” Lambert shouted smugly firing another snowball, which luckily hit the thuja and not Jaskier, who now fell on the snow and was slowly making his way away from the window, “you won’t get away from me!”

“We will see about that,” the musician grumbled thoughtfully. He had two options both of which were not the best. One was to crawl to the back of the thuja line and hide in the corner between the trees and the fence. Or he could run to a small barn which was around the corner and then further into the backyard. Neither of those really gave him an escape route, though there was still an option of barricading in the barn which was better than to freeze his balls off in the corner. Jaskier grabbed some snow for another ball and shouted, “Hey, isn’t it Eskel there?”

He could hear Lambert snort a laugh, “You think that will work on me?”

“Maybe not work,” he poked around the edge of thuja, behind which he was currently hiding. He could see that Lambert had already had another ball himself, so without thinking any longer, Jaskier threw his and bolted to the house wall, “but at least distract!”

While Lambert took his time to dodge an attack and return to his position, the musician managed to get to so much desired wall and plaster himself against it. There was a stream of curses above him, as he made his way, and then a couple of huge snowballs fall mere centimeters in front of him. Jaskier pushed his surprise away, continuing to walk, very happy that Lambert wouldn’t be able to reach him unless he changed his position. The man above him must’ve thought the same because there was a sound of the window closing. The musician sighed in relief, allowing himself to stop and adjust his hat on his head. He could hear that Aiden and Eskel were fighting with each other somewhere on the other side of the house, which was the best thing that could’ve happen. There were no windows nearby, and once he got close enough to the barn Jaskier would be able to just run there, so his plan was working just fine.

What he didn’t took into account, that the moment he got to a porch, there was a winning shout just above his head, and then all of a sudden, a sound of steps at the same place.

“Damn it,” Jaskier cursed, “guess it’s only running left for me now.”

And sweet Melitele did he ran.

The musician could hear shouts from Lambert, who firstly tried to make him fall with snowballs, but when Jaskier managed to avoid most of them by drastically changing his course, he jumped from the roof and ran after the man. Jaskier could hear that something similar to their chase was happening just on his right, however, he didn’t allow himself to look there. One mistake and he would be buried under the snow, and that was the last thing he needed after being so close to his aim. A snowball flew past his head, followed by a stream of curses. A winning laugh escaped his lungs, euphoria filled his soul. He hadn’t had anything these fun since university, and god he was glad to have a chance to experience something like this again.

“Come on! Catch them before they get inside!” Aiden shouted somewhere on Jaskier’s right.

Lambert only swore loudly, “You think this is fucking easy? This little shit runs like his life depends on it!”

“It actually does!” Jaskier replied, trying not to lose his speed. In a second, Eskel appeared in his peripheral vision, which cast a grin on the musician’s face. Looked like they both had the same idea.

Just before he reached the barn, Lambert spat something behind him and then freaking jumped to catch him. With a scream of surprise, Jaskier took to the left, completely messing up his course. Lambert yelped and rolled into the snow, somehow managing to hit Eskel in the process. Two men continued to fly together for a moment before their struggle turned into a full-blown fight on the ground. The musician stopped in his tracks to catch his breath and saw Aiden, who looked like he would join the pile of fighting men any second. Deciding that Eskel didn’t deserve to be outnumbered, Jaskier threw a snowball at Aiden’s shoulder, barely acknowledging the biting cold anymore. Aiden carefully bypassed Eskel, who now had Lambert almost pinned under his weight. His eyes were focused on the musician, carefully watching his every move.

“How about we call it a draw?” Jaskier suggested, his breath still uneven and lungs desperately wanting for more, “surely we can agree on something.”

Instead of a reply, he got another snowball at his shoulder. Jaskier rolled his eyes and eyed his surroundings for a second. There was a medium height pile of snow gathered just near him. Perfect. He took a running start and after almost slipping on a piece of ice, jumped on the pile, grabbing to the snow with his hands. Aiden behind him decided to do the same, though he got less lucky. The man slipped on the ice, so instead of jumping on the pile, Aiden smacked right into its base. There was a moment of silence, during which Jaskier just looked from above at everyone, Eskel looked down at Lambert, who was pinned under him, and glared at his brother, while Aiden was trying to get out of the snow.

The musician took a deep breath, silently cursing his lack of stamina, “I told you to take the draw,” he breathed out unevenly.

“Hope you learned not to enter our room with snow, pup?” Eskel asked looking in Lambert’s eyes.

Lamber growled under his breath, “Okay, okay, now get the fuck off me!”

Eskel slowly got off his brother and then on his legs. He walked to the pile, from under which Aiden finally managed to get free, and gave Jaskier his hand. Jaskier grinned and took it eagerly, then easily jumping off to the ground. Suddenly, there was a sound of clapping coming from the house, and all of them could see Geralt and Ciri clap at them. Then Vesemir showed up in one of the windows to bark at everyone to get inside before either of them caught hypothermia from being so stupid. Only just now Jaskier noticed he was soaking wet from both sweat and snow, his left hand had turned red from the cold and was now burning. Eskel near him wasn’t much better, and both Aiden and Lambert were covered in snow from head to toes. Though, as four of them walked to the house, laughing and discussing the fight, Jaskier knew it was worth it anyway.

***

A fire was softly crackling in a fireplace. A television on the wall just near it broadcasted some movie on New Year theme, though out of all people scattered around the warm hearth hardly anyone of them was actually watching it. Vesemir, whose idea it was to gather up this way, was gently snoring in his armchair with a book resting on his stomach. After everyone returned to the house, he was the one to make sure none of them actually caught a cold. The old man grumbled and swore at them for being reckless in the middle of the winter, though everyone could see that his eyes were soft under the frown he wore. Ciri was sitting on a soft carpet, leaning on the sofa. Her fingers were quickly tapping on the screen of her phone, writing down all the details of the fight. Geralt was near her. His hand gently rested on his daughter’s hair, while his glance slid over letters in his newspaper, and a small frown rested on his face as he read about all shit that had somehow managed to happen in one day. Lambert and Aiden weren’t in the room. Instead, those two were sitting at the kitchen table, somehow managing to quietly play Gwent.

Meanwhile, Jaskier was lying in Eskel’s lap, curled in a tight ball. Eskel’s hand was playing with his hair, while the man himself was reading a book. The musician reluctantly opened his eyes and looked around, content at what he was seeing. He was pleasantly exhausted after everything that had happened today. Even cleaning Lambert’s room wasn’t that much of a hustle. In eight arms they finished the task in no time, and as a result of that now there was a snowman standing in front of Lambert’s window with a blanket over its shoulders. Nope, it wasn’t left for the snowman because it froze to the snow, definitely not because of that. After the task was done, it was late in the evening, so a gather up on the first floor worked well enough with everyone. Jaskier looked to a Christmas tree which was standing proudly just near the armchair and smiled. Everyone decided it would be better to leave opening presents for another time, since, as it turned out, Ciri’s mother would come in a few days, and opening presents was a tradition of sorts in this house.

Honestly, this family kept surprising Jaskier. Where his parents would’ve just opened everything even before the midnight of a new year, Morhens were ready to wait for the rest of their family to come over before even touching boxes. Where before the musician’s holidays would be quiet and lonely, these were loud and funny. In one day, he experienced much more than in past years since his graduation from University. Of course, there were times when Jaskier would gather with his friends, though those usually happened in a café or a park where there wouldn’t be any room for having this much fun. And when they did have a similar amount of excitement, it was either when they were drunk or playing truth or dare with each other. A smile crossed his face. Even if the rest of the days are a quarter as good as this one, these holidays might be the best Jaskier had ever had.

Eskel hummed deeply, feeling how he curled tighter in a ball, “Everything’s fine?” his hand stopped for a second in Jaskier’s hair. The musician whined quietly at the motion and carefully took Eskel’s hand in his to continue stroking, “alright, alright. I’m not stopping,” there was a small pause in which Eskel carefully put his book aside. His free hand curled around Jaskier bringing him even closer, “did you have fun today?”

Jaskier only nodded. His eyelids became heavy from all the warmth and comfort around him. As he was slowly falling asleep, he could hear Eskel chuckling softly at him and asking something else. However, even with those tiny bits of concentration he still had, there was no chance the musician would be able to decipher what was said to him. The last thing he remembered, was a press of soft lips against his cheek and a soft touch of hand which moved the fringe from his eyes. Tomorrow will be a new day, and new adventures to endure. And Jaskier was ready to step in it with everything he had.

**Author's Note:**

> And I'm back, everyone! Welcome to a sweet collection of our chaotic family adventures. I will write this in my free time or practically whenever a streak of nostalgia about my own adventures hits me hard enough. There won't be any schedule or something to this, though I will try to upload somewhat regularly.  
> Have a nice day)


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